Seeing Red
by sub0chick
Summary: Harry's traumatized by something he sees. No pairings, just general fluff. Rated for language and some imagery


**Prompt #344 - Murder – Seeing Red- jujukittychick - Harry Potter **

**Title**: Seeing Red

**Author**: jujukittychick

**Fandom**: Harry Potter

**Cast**: Harry Potter

**Prompt**: lj tamingthemuse #344- Murder

**Warnings**: None

**Rating**: PG for some imagery

**Disclaimer**: I do not own anything except the computer I'm typing this on and am making no money. Harry Potter belongs to its respective creators and owners who *are* making money off them. I'm just doing this for my own fun and entertainment; in general, if you recognize something, I don't own it.

**Beta**: NONE! Any mistakes are my own

**Spoilers**: Snape's a bastard? Lol

**A/N:** As a funny note, my spell check recognizes Gryffindor and Gryffindor's, but not Gryffindors. I think it's funny that it's been added into the spell check vocabulary at all.

**Summary**: Harry's traumatized by something he sees

Red. It was the first thing Harry saw – endless, flowing red. It was the kind of thing that your mind finds so horrible that it deceives you for as long as it can that what you're viewing really isn't _that_ bad. And then it all becomes clear and it's so much worse than you ever thought.

"Wow…that is a _lot_ of red, mate." Ron looked from his piece of parchment to the sheet trembling slightly in Harry's tightly clenched hands. "I don't think _mine_ even looks like that."

"What's wrong with Harry? What are you two… Wow! That's an awful lot of red ink, Harry. Do you think Professor Snape accidentally spilled the bottle on it?" Hermione peered over Harry's other shoulder at the red ink that was flowing like jagged daggers of blood over the sheet of parchment, Harry's own black ink nearly obscured.

"I…I murdered a book, a whole book, and, yeah, there was screaming and ink spurting everywhere like I hit an artery, but…but it wasn't anything like this. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this." Harry gazed blindly down at his homework assignment, unable to translate what he was seeing into actual words. It was just so _beyond_ anything that he'd received back so far, and he'd gotten some pretty bad grades in Potions.

Ron made sympathetic noises and looked frantically over at Hermione – she was the smart one, the one that knew how to make things like this better. She needed to fix him! Especially since they'd nearly made it to the Great Hall for lunch.

Hermione, on her part, was trying to peer through the red slashes to the writing underneath and figure out what was written previously, tilting her head first one way than the other as she tried to puzzle it out. "Did you even write about the homework topic? Maybe you confused it with something else? So many of the ingredients used here are so terribly similar after all."

"I…yeah, of course I did. I was doing my homework with you, remember, and you _made_ me go to the library with you to get more books about it because you didn't think our Potions book had enough material to write the essay."

"Oh…that is right. I'm sure there must be some logical reason for it, Harry."

"Other than Snape's a bastard?"

"Ron!" Hermione hissed, looking around to make sure no first years or teachers were around. "You're a prefect, you can't go saying stuff like that in public."

"Indeed, Mr. Weasley, ten points from Gryffindor for language. And another five points, Mr. Potter, for reading someone else's homework results." Snape stepped dramatically from the shadows behind the three, causing all three to jump in surprise, much to his own secret delight. Plucking the, now forgotten, parchment from Potter's hand, he deftly rolled it back up.

"Wait a minute! What do you mean reading someone else's work?"

"It appears you were given Mr. Crabbe's essay in the mad rush the lot of you made to get out of the room. To say he was quite delighted in getting to mock your own poor attempts is an understatement. However, he does need to receive his own." Handing over a slightly mangled looking roll of parchment, Snape turned on his heel, robes billowing around him, and made his way back to the dungeons.

"Well, that was…unexpected." Hermione stood blinking in surprise at the sudden turn of events.

Harry looked down at the squished and smudged roll of parchment he'd been handed and nervously unrolled it, his heart lightening with every inch uncovered until he yelled in triumph, startling his two friends. "Hah! I got an A! I couldn't even see the name on the paper under all the red; guess I should have known you wouldn't let me turn in a paper _that_ bad, huh 'Mione?"

Feeling quite chipper after the traumatic moment earlier, Harry strolled happily into the Great Hall, deciding to help himself to two desserts as a reward for his good grade and to help soothe over the lingering panic from his look at the first essay.

Hermione and Ron shook their heads and smiled at each other at Harry's mercurial moods and started to follow him into the room.

Ron, glanced over at the snakes' table, seeing Malfoy and his goons laughing about something, probably the "bad" grade Harry had gotten. Looking back at 'Mione, he muttered, "I bet Snape did it on purpose, swapping those papers. Told you he was a bastard."

"Twenty Points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley." Snape strode past on his way to the teacher's table, smirking as he made all the Gryffindors in the vicinity jump at his words.

"Bloody hell!"

"You just never learn, Ron." Hermione shook her head and sighed, taking her place next to her two best friends at the table. Things were as they should be, once again.


End file.
